


Guaranteeing the Existence of the Self

by kymericl



Category: The Phantom (1996)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kymericl/pseuds/kymericl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Being The Phantom is a 24/7 endeavour.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You Take the Legend for a Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atlanticslide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlanticslide/gifts).



> Wishing you a wonderful Yuletide!  
> & a massive thank you to my beta, agapi42.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Being The Phantom is a 24/7 endeavour._

Being the Phantom is a 24/7 endeavour.

As soon as he wakes up, he _is_ the Phantom. Kit Walker is the disguise he uses when he has to walk among average citizens incognito. Most people believe it’s the other way around: when he needs to, he masks his 'true' identity and becomes the Phantom. Kit Walker is a person that his father created, whom he expanded upon while studying in New York. Once the legacy of the Phantom was passed on to him, however, only the smallest traces of Kit Walker existed.

To be a functioning hero, you couldn’t only think and act as one part-time. This was something he tried to teach Sala the few times she and Diana had returned to the island. Every attempt was met with a disinterested shrug and Sala claiming that she never tried to be a hero. Diana would usually follow it up with a blanket assumption that, like lawyers, all pirates tended to fall in the grey area of morality.

He didn't have any fancy gadgets or superpowers or special mutations; all he had were skills honed through years of hard work and dedication. It did help that his training had started young, and that his family had four centuries of experience to fall back on.

His training went beyond the use of modern technology. A lot of the skills he required were mental. Physical agility meant nothing without the support of a well-honed mental capacity. Visualisation was vital: you couldn't move faster than a cheetah if you imagined yourself as a snail.

But these were the Phantom’s skills, not Kit’s. Sometimes he wondered whether if he thought too much like Kit, his abilities as the Phantom would fade. Other times he wondered if there was any difference between how the Phantom and Kit thought. Could they rightly be said to be the same person, even though one only existed in short spans of times and was rarely acknowledged?


	2. It’s Just the Fault of Faulty Manufacturing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The day Diana and Sala return there is a fire on the island._

The day Diana and Sala return there is a fire on the island. The forest greenery is replaced by red flames and grey smoke, the colours smudging to black at a distance.

It's not noticeable at first, a quick flicker of bright orange against a backdrop of green.

The village has been cleared, with the residents on the beach celebrating some festivity or other. Possibly it is someone's birthday, or someone has been promoted; they don’t really need a reason, or, they’re good at finding reasons to drink unquantifiable amounts of alcohol. While they are still technically on duty, there isn’t much to be done. The Phantom takes care of smugglers and trouble-makers, dropping them off on the edge of the village with everything but a bow and a name-tag.

Without a doubt though, the men who comprised the Jungle Patrol would refrain from such frivolities if they even _thought_ that the Phantom wasn’t on the island.  

When the alcohol starts dwindling down to non-existent portions, it’s suggested that they draw sticks to see who will return to the village to scrounge for more. This idea is quickly abandoned when an impromptu game of land-based _Marco Polo_ evolves from the search of adequate sticks to use. Instead, the men decide on a game of arm wrestling. It's the manliest game they can think of in their drunken state that doesn't involve too much physical exertion.

  
Captain Horton is the first one back and so the first to spot the flames. Normally, he would have   beaten every volunteer without so much as trying, but he had been feeling kind and complacent, lazy and slow with all that alcohol.

Irresponsibly, he is practically falling asleep at the wheel when he notices the fire.

It was the sound first, a deceptive noise what sounded like rushing water.  It doesn’t register as anything dangerous until he realises that the brightness of the village isn't due to the moonlight, and, though hot, the village isn't in a greenhouse, and therefore shouldn't be any hotter than the rest of the jungle.

His heart speeds up, kicking into overtime, but it takes a few drug-slowed seconds for his conscious brain to work out what his body already has.

Then he is alert and on the move, speeding as carefully as possible back to the beach.

Half-way there, he brakes sharply and reconsiders. Does he really want to put himself in charge of other intoxicated men as they attempt to put out a rapidly growing fire? No, it’s better if he seeks the help of someone always prepared to tackle any trouble that befell the island, someone who has sworn an oath and maintains a constant state of vigilance within his waterfall hideout.


	3. It Takes a Word to Make an Action

Sala slumped backwards. _Well, that didn't work._ She tore her gaze away from the flames and directed it towards the Phantom. "Can't you just use your superhuman powers to, you know," she waved her hands vaguely, " _blow it out?_ "

The Phantom gave her an incredulous look, quickly transformed into one of patience. It was a look that an eighth-grade teacher would give to one of his students if said student was waxing lyrical about all the presents that Santa had delivered over Christmas.

As he opened his mouth to explain, once again, that not only did he not have any superhuman powers that could help in this particular situation, he didn't possess any special abilities at all, Diana sighed.

"We talked about this, remember? The Phantom is just Kit, no special abilities or superpowers, just thousands of hours of his life devoted to honing his skills."

Sala frowned. To her, Kit wasn't real. To her, Kit was just a disguise the Phantom.

"Don't you remember what you told me the first time Diana and I returned to Bangalla, and I was asking why you insisted on wearing that retina-damaging suit all over the place? You said that, in order to function at your highest ability, you had to think and act like a hero at all times."

"Yes, I remember.” The Phantom nodded thoughtfully as he paraphrased Sala, “Being the Phantom is a twenty-four-seven job; it can't be done half-heartedly."

Sala shot Diana a pointed look, who in turn rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Do you remember the fire? Can we leave the philosophical debates for now?"

"Diana is right. The name doesn't make the man. His actions do."

The Phantom placed the tips of his index finger and thumb in his mouth, and whistled. The shrill noise skimmed effortlessly across the sound of the expanding fire.


	4. We’ll Walk this Road Together

They agreed to split up. While Diana and Sala headed to the beach to organise a fire line, the Phantom went to gather the help of the Rope People. As the noise of Hero’s hooves faded into the distance, the Phantom ran towards the heart of the forest and the people who helped raise him.

  
At first, the men are too busy arguing amongst themselves, shouting out half-orders and punctuating every sentence with several choice swear words. It takes Captain Horton leaning heavily on the horn of his jeep to silence the crowd. Once they've quieted themselves to a more reasonable level, content with muttering worry-filled promises of future sobriety, Diana takes over. They may not have been content taking orders from a Page One girl, but she was the niece of Dave Palmer, the owner of the _Daily Herald,_ and a New Yorker. So, despite their grumblings, when Diana spoke the men listened, and when she gave her orders they obeyed.

While Diana organized the men and distributed assignments, Sala rode Hero to the tip of the island where her seaplane was anchored. Using the radio in the cabin, she sent a message to the rest of the Sky Band. She might be taking a sabbatical from the pirate life, but that didn't mean any of her girls could or would disobey a direct order. Not only were they too well trained for such acts of insubordination, they were always eager for action, no matter which side the results catered to.

Soon enough, there were two lines: one working its way through the forest and the other supplying water to the seaplanes of the Sky Band pilots, while the Phantom, along with the Rope People, starved the fire from above, containing the flames within a set perimeter.

It was safely put out within a matter of hours.

 

Being the Phantom is a 24/7 endeavour, but one man doesn't have to carry the burden alone.


End file.
